Blackmagic Adds New AI Tools and Text-Based Editing to DaVinci Resolve 18.5

Blackmagic Design is kicking Resolve up another notch.

As NAB 2023 kicks off in Las Vegas, some of the biggest trends and buzziest words are shaping up to feature new AI technologies and the various functions of neural-engined powered functions like audio and text-based editing and support.

And in that vein, Blackmagic Design has unveiled some exciting new features for their new DaVinci Resolve 18.5 update, which includes new AI-based tools and plenty of AI-powered support and features.

Let’s look at some of these new updates coming to DaVinci Resolve and which features you can most excitedly explore with the beta available to download now.

DaVinci Resolve Gets a Major AI Update

While AI has been under the hood in Resolve for almost half a decade, they’re getting more of a spotlight as AI takes over our creative toolsets.

The biggest news from the Blackmagic booth — in terms of video editing at least — unsurprisingly has to do with the four new AI tools, along with over 150 feature upgrades and some major updates to the Cut page.

With these new DaVinci Neural Engine AI updates, editors can now transcribe audio within clips to search for media based on different narrative contexts, or even quickly generate subtitles for timelines with their new automatic speech-to-text feature. This is big news for any solo video editors or large teams looking to knock out big projects fast and with lots of different deliverables.

In particular, this auto sorting of audio clips based on classifications, and how the Fairlight page audio tracks can now be grouped for faster mix automation, means that the manual syncing and searching tasks that often come with large batches of footage can be quickly minimized and taken out of your workflows altogether.

Add in some new Relight FX for the adding of virtual lighting to your scenes, and new supports for VFX artists trying to collaborate more easily with support for USD files and ultimately work fasters with multi-merge tools, this new Resolve update should be quite enticing for video editors of any ilk, which is good timing on the part of BMD as the industry is undoubtedly shifting towards smarter, faster and more streamlined workflows at a rapid pace.

Credit: Blackmagic Design

DaVinci Resolve 18.5 Cuts Harder Than Ever Before

We should also mention some new additions to the Cut page as three new menus should allow for quicker and more flexible editing as well.

Using the timeline options, timeline actions, and edit actions to toggle ripple editing, trim edit points to the play head, resync, and even change the appearance of the timeline should all give a boost to workflow speed and effectiveness.

The Cut page will also include a new ripple button which will enable and disable rippled edits as the previous edits were always rippled. With the new disable option the duration of the edit will be preserved so users can create their own gaps in the timeline as they see fit. As stated above, all of these new tools and features aim to reduce the meticulous time in the app and give more flexibility to editors and creators to have more fun with the creative aspects of video editing.

Here’s a full list of the updates coming to Resolve 18.5: